Doug Gammon
2021-05-09
Getting old sucks!

Isn't it funny how:

A lazy employee continues to be lazy everyday and no one bats an eye.
A hard working employee decides to take it easy one day and everyone loses their minds.

I am opposed to any:

Intolerance, especially when one thinks they can punish because another does not feel as they do, or someone does not like what another says, believes, or thinks.

Excessive government, especially one trying to control and/or regulate any part of our lives.

Attempts to either monopolize and/or control opinion.

Suppression of freedoms, especially of thought, worship, guns, and expression.

Just a thought:

When a person or select group of people don't get equal access and/or treatment as a result or directly because of their race, creed, religion, gender, or preferences (personal or private) this is known as racism and/or discrimination.

When a person or select group of people get an exception or special privilege as a result or directly because of their race, creed, religion, gender, or preferences (personal or private) why isn't this known as favoritism, preferential treatment, and/or discrimination?

Quotes from Doug:

"You must always be true to God, yourself, and your family. And in that order."
— Doug Gammon

"In an environment where everyone is presumed to have an equally steady and/or busy workload, with a need to complete a growing list of tasks. If someone offers to complete a task for you that will take time away from their daily work and other responsibilities, especially if it is, or will be, part of their workflow. Their primary motivation is often to save time, reduce hardship and headaches for themselves. And they will almost always look down on you in any number of ways as a result."
— Doug Gammon

"Procrastination is delaying or postponing something today that you can do tomorrow. But procrastinating until it is required or overdue is just stupidity."
— Doug Gammon

"Processes and procedures are not put into place to make your life hard or to get in the way. These are put into place to ensure that not only is everyone's expectations set the same, but to also ensure consistency and accuracy, and to make it posable for someone else to step in/fill in as needed while reducing the chance of something getting missed, forgotten, or done incorrectly."
— Doug Gammon

"Responding to a question with the same information, data, or statement that inspired the question only shows the respondents lack of knowledge, insight, understanding, and respect, as well as their inability or lack of willingness to supply tutelage, guidance, or leadership."
— Doug Gammon

"A cursory look at history shows that one of the first things a new king, emperor, fascist, communist, socialist, tyrant, dictator, or any totalitarian leader does is to take everyone's guns and outlaw them. Then they go after free and open speech. And then they go after religion or any religion that is not state-sponsored and/or state friendly. However, depending on their priorities, not always in this order. So anyone that is determined to disarm you, silence you, and/or control or disband your religion is not on your side and is not your friend."
— Doug Gammon

"You should always code, create, and build to the lowest common denominator. But you must understand and remember that almost always the lowest common denominator is, more often than not, those that think they know more than they do, those that can not or will not ask for help, and those that can not or will not learn and grow. In short, it is your job to fix stupid."
— Doug Gammon

"A good website should always have information that is complete, none cryptic, well-organized, accurate, real-time, and widely understandable, even if it is aimed at or intended for a specific group or audience.

It should also be laid out in such a way as to ensure that the end user can find all information and relevant data quickly, in an understandable format, without having to get through unwanted or unneeded fluff and/or fill.

Pictures and/or graphics should always be kept to a minimum. The exception to this being sites that are directed at and intended for children were pictures and/or graphics may be required to keep the child's attention.

In most other cases, large pictures and/or graphics or large numbers of pictures and/or graphics are a burden on the user, the user's data, and the user's time. Even most news stories would have one and in a few cases two, pictures for the whole story and/or page.

In short, if they can't read it, use it, understand it, learn from it, or don't have the time or patience to muddle through what is, in their view, the superfluous then what use is it?"
— Doug Gammon

"Exceptions are rarely made for or needed by the exceptional. And almost always demanded by those who should, often more than most, be required to follow the rules, processes, policies, best practices, and/or laws without exception."
— Doug Gammon

"It is human nature to achieve only what is required, when it is required, and only with the minimum that is required. Most people would achieve nothing if it was not for the pain, punishment, or other repercussions that would result otherwise."
— Doug Gammon

"An unbelievably small percentage of the population strive to achieve solely for the betterment, safety, or enrichment of others.

Whereas most of the population don't even strive to achieve and any achievement is solely by accident or luck.

A large percentage of the population achieves solely for financial gain and/or to otherwise enrich themselves. And an equally large percentage of the population achieves solely for the prestige and/or respect to be gained.

God knowing this about us, still loves us and not only hopes for our salvation but offers a way to it. As well as a guiding light to show the way."
— Doug Gammon

"Ignorance is bliss, unless you're the one that has to make up for or take care of the ignorant."
— Doug Gammon

"It seems that the vast majority of our population will only ever achieve what is expected, or worse yet and becoming more common, required of it. This being true, our future seems to hold very little promise of any real achievements under the current social and political ideologies and beliefs."
— Doug Gammon

"These days it seems that most people are waiting for something that is not going to happen."
— Doug Gammon

"Assuming that any group is reasonable, concerned, involved, engaged, or even really cares about something is always a bad assumption. It is the job and responsibility of the communicator to draw people in and keep them interested. This goes for all things and subjects as it is the natural state for most to be oblivious to most everything."
— Doug Gammon

"Leadership comes from one’s knowledge of people and your area of influence, ie what your department does. Not from degrees, education, force, or fear. A true leader keeps up with what is going on, new, and/or changing in his/her field, has the strength to give instructions and then allow his/her people to carry them out, the wisdom and foresight to find and hire the right qualified, driven, achievers in the first place. And takes pride in his/her groups progress and achievements, not his/her own."
— Doug Gammon

"Normal is merely the insanity that we are used to."
— Doug Gammon

"Being supportive doesn't require lock stepped agreement nor a yes man mentality.

In a true partnership it can also require pointing out possible draw backs and/or pit falls. And insuring that the person being supported is considering all the possibilities.

Support comes in many forms and silence is always considered consent."
— Doug Gammon

"If there is ever an exception made, then "I am" or "this is" the exception will always be assumed."
— Doug Gammon

"You are correct, America is not perfect. God knows we have made more than our share of mistakes. However, it is generally much better and dare I say even far superior to all the other alternative that man has come up with thus far."
— Doug Gammon

My favorite quotes:

"Education is not the learning of facts, but the training of the mind to think."
— Albert Einstein

"It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it."
— Aristotle

"Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master."
— Commisioner Pravin Lal, Alpha Centauri (game from Firaxis)

"Youth ages, immaturity is outgrown, ignorance can be educated, and drunkenness sobered, but stupid lasts forever."
— Aristophanes

"Freedom of speech is a principal pillar of a free government; when this support is taken away, the constitution of a free society is dissolved, and tyranny is erected on its ruins. Republics and limited monarchies derive their strength and vigor from a popular examination into the action of the magistrates."
— Benjamin Franklin

"The Constitution is not a personal tool for censoring everyone's beliefs but your own."
— Eric Baxter, Published June 21, 2014, FoxNews.com

"They who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
— Benjamin Franklin

"As the Founding Fathers knew well, a government that does not trust its honest, law-abiding, taxpaying citizens with the means of self-defense is not itself worthy of trust. Laws disarming honest citizens proclaim that the government is the master, not the servant, of the people."
— Jeffrey R Snyder, A Nation of Cowards, published in the Fall, 1993 issue of The Public Interest

"Probably fewer than 2% of handguns and well under 1% of all guns will ever be involved in a violent crime. Thus, the problem of criminal gun violence is concentrated within a very small subset of gun owners, indicating that gun control aimed at the general population faces a serious needle-in-the-haystack problem."
— Gary Kleck, "Point Blank: Handgun Violence In America"

"Americans have the right and advantage of being armed - unlike the citizens of other countries whose governments are afraid to trust the people with arms."
— James Madison, The Federalist Papers

"The best we can hope for concerning the people at large is that they be properly armed."
— Alexander Hamilton, The Federalist Papers at 184-188

"Among the many misdeeds of British rule in India, history will look upon the Act depriving a whole nation of arms as the blackest."
— Mohandas Gandhi, An Autobiography, pg 446

"The only thing that saves us from the bureaucracy is inefficiency. An efficient bureaucracy is the greatest threat to liberty."
— Eugene McCarthy, Time magazine (February 12, 1979)

"When plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men in a society, over the course of time they create for themselves a legal system that authorizes it and a moral code that glorifies it."
— Frédéric Bastiat, Economic Sophisms (1845-1848)

"The worst form of inequality is to try to make unequal things equal."
— Aristotle

"Before God we are all equally wise - and equally foolish."
— Albert Einstein

"To err is human, but to really foul things up you need a computer."
— Paul R. Ehrlich

"It is change, continuing change, inevitable change, that is the dominant factor in society today. No sensible decision can be made any longer without taking into account not only the world as it is, but the world as it will be."
— Isaac Asimov

Other great quotes:

"If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State."
— Joseph Goebbels (Nazi Germany [1933-1945])

"Without forgiveness life is governed by an endless cycle of resentment and retaliation."
— Roberto Assagioli

"Life is not fair and people are not equal."
— Hiroo Onoda

"Life is not fair, get used to it."
— Bill Gates

You cannot:

Bring prosperity by discouraging thrift.
Help small men by tearing down big men.
Strengthen the weak by weakening the strong.
Lift the wage earner by pulling down the wage payer.
Help the poor man by destroying the rich.
Keep out of trouble by spending more than your income.
Further brotherhood of men by inciting class hatred.
Establish security on borrowed money.
Build character and courage by taking away man's initiative and independence.
Help men permanently by doing for them what they could and should do for themselves.

"I choose to live by choice, not by chance; to make changes, not excuses; to be useful, not used; to choose self-esteem, not self-pity."
— Unknown

"God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
Courage to change the things I can,
And wisdom to know the difference."
— Reinhold Niebuhr (1892-1971) American theologian